The Man Who Sees The World In Denim

If you think that denim is just a piece of cloth, there is someone in Sweden that is going to make you change your mind.

For Ian Berry, also known as Denimu, denim is an art. In fact he uses pieces of vintage denim to create amazing portraits and charming landscape paintings. “I love everything of denim: the shadows, the texture and I love the universality of it. For me the denim is ubiquitous – transcending borders, races, ages, social classes” explain to me Ian.

But where does the idea of denim art come from? “About five years ago I was at my parent’s house and I found a pair of old jeans ready for a charity shop. I found myself staring at them, I was transfixed by the ripped, faded beauty of the fabric. How the different blues contrasted against each others in a sea of shades. That was my brainwave, in that instant I realized how many stories a jeans could tell”.

From that moment on, inspired by his old pair of jeans and using scissors and glue, Ian started creating his own denim world, transforming old pair of jeans into art.
His favorite subjects are the Swedish landscapes to which he dedicated the serie “The Sight of Sound” and the portraits, including the tributes to the two biggest denim icons: James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. “Without James Dean and his character in Rebel Without a Cause, denim would not have been the symbol of rebellion that was in the Sixties and today would not have the same value” tells Ian.

After five years of work Ian had collected so many jeans that he was able to fill seven closets and his works are a must, exposed in museums and galleries all around the world. Denimu’s work have been exhibited in Sweden, Portugal and US and will be in London next year.

But from a museum to your living room it is a short step …in fact Ian has just opened his own online shop, just in time for Christmas 🙂